On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve did exactly what they did last year
    They waited until the last possible meeting to nudge the Federal Funds rate by 1/4 of 1%
    So now, after 2 years of tightening, the lower bound of the Fed's range has gone from zero to 1/2 of 1%
    Now Janet Yellen said the Fed made this decision to lift rates because of its confidence in the U.S economy
     That is complete nonsense
    If the Fed were confident in the U.S economy, rates would be much higher than a half of a percent
    The Fed would have raised rates a long time ago and by much more than this
    In fact, they could have lifted rates by more than 25 basis points on Wednesday
    Yet, they had so little confidence in the economy that this is what they did
    In fact, I believe that the only reason the Fed raised rates this December
    Is the same reason they did so last December: they did it despite having no confidence in the economy
    But they didn't want to send a message that they were that worried, so they raised interest rates by the smallest possible amount
    And they also did it to try to preserve their credibility when it comes to talking about future interest rates
    Think about one half of one percent
    When Alan Greenspan slashed interest rates in the afermath of the September 11 disaster and the bursting of the dot com bubble
    When the stock market was plunging and the economy was in recession, he was so worried about the economy that he lowered rates down to 1%
    Now Yellen is so confident in the economy, the highest she's willing to raise them is 1/2 of 1%?
    This is half of where they were lowered in panic by Greenspan?
    So the fact that rates are only 1/2%, what does that tell you about the true confidence that Janet Yellen and the rest of the Federal Reserve have in the U.S. Economy?

The Peter Schiff Show Podcast

Fed Fakes Confidence With Another Dec. Quarter Point Rate Hike

Peter Schiff is an economist, financial broker/dealer, author, frequent guest on national news, and host of the Peter Schiff Show Podcast.  He follows up his daily two-hour radio show with podcasts focusing on weekly economic data analysis and unbiased coverage of financial news, both in the U.S. and global markets.  As entertaining as he is informative, Peter packs decades of brilliant insight into every news item.  Join the thousands of fans who have benefited from Peter’s commitment to getting the real story out every week.